What would you do?
by Gumnut
Summary: A scene between two brothers after a bad day.


Title: What would you do?

Author: Gumnut

11-13 Jul 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: A scene between two brothers after a bad day.

Word count: 1651

Spoilers & warnings: None. Gen.

Timeline: Standalone

Author's note: For scribbles97. Because she inadvertently prompted it in chat. This fic is a little experimental on my part. It certainly isn't the first time I've written in first person, but it is the first time I have in this fandom and for Virgil. I'm getting flashbacks to my role-playing days. I certainly found writing this a more intense experience than third person. I may play with it again, so let me know what you think of this, particularly if you would like more of it. Heh, there could even be more of this fic, but I might have to switch to first person from Scott's POV and that would be challenging. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it :D

Disclaimer: Mine? You've got to be kidding. Money? Don't have any, don't bother.

-o-o-o-

Staring at the piano keys is something I find myself doing far too much. No music, just sitting there, losing time, thinking. Some days it's okay, but others cause the keys to blur and, no, I really shouldn't waste time like that.

Music is a distraction. I can lose myself in it. It could be considered a drug, a painkiller, numbing whatever is bothering me, but it is also a release. I can channel what I'm feeling. Get it out and feed it into the keys, translate it into sounds I can't vocalise myself.

It's a voice.

Today was a very bad day. We lost children and that always hurts. It had been particularly hard on Scott because he had to face the shocked husband of a dead young woman while cradling her crippled body in his arms. I...it was bad.

He wouldn't talk to me. Both Gordon and John tried, but no...none of us were at our best. I had my own unpleasant situations in that wretched rescue. We all had and I hate to say it, but I needed to fix myself before I could help my brother.

So I fled to the piano.

I played for a long time. Some of it I remember, some of it I don't and have no wish to, but at some point, I realised I was being watched and that stopped my fingers.

He was standing beside our portraits, hands in his pockets, sadness in his eyes.

And my face was wet.

Damn.

Scott didn't say anything, just grabbed a box of tissues off Dad's desk and placed them softly on top of the piano. I still hadn't found any words myself, so I said nothing and just grabbed enough to wipe my eyes.

There were no great gasping sobs or anything, just those silent tears that sneak out when you're hurting. I wasn't surprised when his hand landed on my shoulder. Scott is always the supportive one. He worries more than he should.

"Sorry." I admit it came out hoarse and embarrassed.

"Nothing to apologise for, Virg." Again with the squeezing of the shoulder. "Part of me wishes I could do the same."

I turned to look up at him and found such hollowness in his eyes, it hurt. It was obvious that the day was haunting him as much as it was me, he just...

"Did you want to spar? Go for a run? I can come with." They were Scott's usual coping mechanisms. Anything to get that desolation out of his eyes.

"No. I..." And he seemed to lose his words. Scott's shoulders dropped a little and his hand returned to his side.

I shunted to one side on the piano stool. "Sit down."

"What?"

"Sit down, here." I patted the cushion.

Scott stared at me. The stool wasn't a big one and it would be cramped, but I could see the decision made in his eyes and a moment later, my big brother was thigh to thigh beside me, staring at the piano keys.

"I don't know how you do this."

"And I don't know how you find running in circles to be so therapeutic either." I let my fingers run over the keys before choosing a simple, but familiar tune from our childhood. One our mother had taught all of us to play a very long time ago.

"Is that a hint?"

"Take it any way you like." I stopped playing and gestured for Scott to give it a go.

My brother was hesitant. I wasn't surprised in the least since I think he had been about fourteen the last time he had touched a piano other than to help me move it.

"This is silly."

"I could be offended at that, you know."

He sighed and I felt his entire body sag beside me.

"C'mon, Scott, you never know until you try."

"I'm not going to know enough to do what you do." There was frustration hiding pain.

"You don't have to." My shoulders tightened. "Think of Mom."

That did it. His back straightened and the glare he shot me was more anxiety than anger, but his fingers reached for the keys, lining up in the familiar practise routine from all those years ago.

Mom taught us all, but I was the only one who followed through. John has a beautiful voice that he refuses to use. Gordon's isn't bad either and he can string a jaunty tune together on a keyboard when pushed, but music just isn't his native environment. Alan has his guitar, but it is more ornament than instrument nowadays.

Scott...I don't think Scott has even let himself try. His interests just lie elsewhere. He has no use for music other than as a companion on those runs, or for shaking the walls of the gym. Part of me wonders if losing Mom caused him to stop any and all aspirations in that direction. Music was definitely a reminder of our mother.

His fingers were hesitant, off beat, but the tune was sketched out in the air, each note following the other in an inevitable trail of hurt.

Because that is what it was to watch my big brother attempting to lose his pain in my piano. It was my turn to put my hand on his shoulder.

I found it trembling.

Note after forced note, harsh and unschooled, yet beautiful in their own way. My fingers squeezed unprompted and Scott looked at me, the music coming to an abrupt halt.

Blue flashed so much.

"You are so much like Mom." It was quiet, soft.

My eyes widened and my hand shifted across his back wrapping around his shoulders. "I guess one of us has to be with all these hotshot speed junkies in the house."

Those eyes dipped back to the keyboard and his fingers poked at a few more keys, this time in a tune I hadn't heard in a very long time. "I often ask myself 'what would Dad do?' Dad was, is, such a big influence in our lives." His fingers played the piano softly. I reached out and played a one-handed counterpoint to those gentle keys. The air around us echoed the melody off the glass walls. "I never have to ask myself what Mom would do."

I frowned. "Why not?"

His fingers stopped and my counterpoint fell away. "Because she's in you...so much. I don't have to ask, because you know already."

I straightened just a little, not entirely comfortable with the concept. Dad...Dad had difficulty with me after Mom's death for this exact reason. Difficulty that I had since found understandable, but it would always be hard.

Now my brother was saying the same thing.

"I...I know I look like Mom, but that hardly means I know what-"

"Virg." My name was said with such desolation it hurt. "I was older." He swallowed and I felt that shared pain from all those years ago. "You...you are more like her than you know." A sudden snort of derision. "Everyone knows of the great Jeff Tracy. The self-made billionaire and his five sons." Scott dipped his head, once again staring at the piano keys. "Mom is rarely more than a foot note in his bio. Little does anyone know just how much Mom contributes to this family even now, so long after we lost her."

I stared at him. This was new. Scott was usually so much about our father, so much focused on what Jeff Tracy would have done. The arm I still had around his shoulders tightened just a little. "I could say the same thing about you. What you would do is likely what Dad would do."

It was a scoff and Scott's hand came down on the piano keys in a discordant jangling of notes. "God, I miss them."

I had no answer to that, only an empathy that hurt. Abruptly, I returned both hands to the keys. This was old brought anew by today's events and it was automatic to attempt to flush the pain through my fingers. Music climbed into the air again, a random sonata from my piano training so long ago.

Scott reached out and caught my hands, stilling the tune. "Never change, Virgil. I need you just as you are."

I stared at him. What he was asking was impossible, but I could see in his eyes the desperation of a man clinging to his tenets. "I will always be here for you, Scott. Always. You know that."

"I know that." It was said ever so quietly, but it was parroted as if it wasn't believed.

"I'm not going anywhere."

The hands holding my fingers tightened before letting them go. Scott straightened, swallowing. "I think I'll go for that run." He slid out from under the piano and stood up.

"You want company?"

"No, I'll...I need some time to think."

I stared up at him, worried. "You sure?"

That hand landed on my shoulder again and squeezed. "I'm good. Thanks for the piano lesson."

A frown. "Anytime." It came out dry and in need of moisture.

His footsteps on the hardwood floor walked away from me and disappeared into the stairwell.

I was left staring at the piano keys, caught in thought about Mom and Dad and a big brother who took far too much onto his shoulders.

What would Mom do?

What would Dad do?

I frowned and hit one of the keys a little too hard. The note bounced off the ceiling and hit me about the head.

I didn't know what either of them would do, but I knew what I needed to. I stood up and the piano stool clattered to the floor as I followed my brother out of the room.

Perhaps it was time to start thinking about what Scott and Virgil Tracy would do. After all, that is who we are.

-o-o-o-


End file.
